Victim of Brutal Beating Says She Is “Afraid” of Google Executive’s Family

There is disturbing bombshell news that has been exposed the other day and it involves a major employee of Google. Marissa Mayer has been with Google since the very early days of the company, she is often said to be the 20^th employee of Google. As one of the very first employees of Google, Marissa knows a lot about Google and she is deeply embedded in this company. Her current job title is Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location services.

Marissa became a very wealthy woman after Google became a public company in 2004. She is often seen as the public face of Google itself. You see her everywhere doing all sorts of different interviews with newspapers and even on television programs like the Martha Stewart Show. She has become somewhat of a celebrity and a spokeswoman for Google. The company uses her bright smile and photogenic looks to give itself an attractive public image.

However, Google might want to keep Marissa out of the spotlight for awhile – perhaps never again. The innocent looking and charming woman Google used as the public face of the company is part of a family that isn’t so attractive.

Now, I have written here before that this blog doesn’t focus on tabloid topics or personal issues, but this particular case involving the Mayer family is different. I don’t like gossipy, irrelevant, and frivolous stuff – but I will focus on criminal activity that has strong connections to Google.

The younger brother of Marissa, Mason Mayer, has been accused of three felonies: assault, false imprisonment and domestic violence. He allegedly brutally beat his girlfriend, Kelli Ann Trent, after a night out back in September 2011. We are learning about this now because The San Francisco Appeal newspaper investigated this case and published their findings yesterday.

Alright – so here’s what happened, according to court documents obtained by the newspaper. An affidavit submitted by San Francisco Police Department Inspector Michael Becker, details exactly what allegedly happened between Mason Mayer and his girlfriend:

On the evening of September 24, Mason and Kelli were getting ready to go to a party. They were at Mason’s condo residence at the time. Prior to the leaving to go to the party, they had an argument over a woman – who Mason allegedly cheated with – attending the party too.

The couple went to the party but there was still tension between them. According to the court document, Mason angrily accused a bartender of hitting on his girlfriend. He also became angry at Kelli Ann Trent for speaking with Marissa Mayer’s husband. Mason apparently “dislikes” his brother-in-law for some reason.

The couple left the party and went back home to Mason’s condo residence. While walking through the building hallway, Mason shoved Kelli. He then took her inside the residence, locked her in his bedroom, and then threw Kelli on the floor of the bedroom.

Mason began spitting in the face of his girlfriend, pulling her hair out, and he slammed her head against the marble bedroom floor. Kelli was in agony and in the fetal position trying to protect herself. Mason repeatedly punched her in the face, while Kelli struggled to get away. He told her that the only way she was going to get out of the beating was by driving her to the Golden Gate Bridge and throwing her off it.

Luckily for Kelli, before things could get any worse, Mason’s cell phone started ringing. It was a friend of the couple who was calling to ask to pick up his personal items from the condo. While on the phone, Kelli screamed for help.

The friend eventually arrived at the condo residence and Mason answered the front door to let him in. Kelli ran out of the bedroom hysterical and crying out for help. Mason grabbed her and wouldn’t let her go. The friend asked Mason to let her go but he refused. The friend said that he would call the police if he didn’t let her go. After Mason finally agreed to let Kelli go, she went back into the bedroom to retrieve her bag.

But Mason followed her back into the bedroom and locked the door shut again. The friend decided to stay the night at the condo to make sure nothing bad happened. The next morning, Kelli got up and she noticed all the injuries to her body.

Kelli eventually went to the police to report what happened to her. The 33-year-old Mason Mayer was arrested by police on November 28, 2011. In January a judge ordered Mason to stay away from Kelli. He has pleaded not guilty – but if found guilty he faces a maximum four years and eight months in state prison. Mason Mayer has a pretrial conference in a Superior Court on April 18^th, 2012.

This is all so disturbing and vile. I need a shower after reading the court documents and seeing the injuries on the alleged victim. Mason Mayer is apparently very close to his famous sister and lives off her success. According to The San Francisco Appeal newspaper, Mason lives in the same luxury building as his sister and he was never worked since his sister struck it rich working at Google.

Just keep this in mind: these are the type of people you entrust your personal information with when you use Google. I certainly wouldn’t want people like Mason Mayer and his executive sister anywhere near my personal data. Knowing about the ethics and morals of the people who handle very sensitive data about you is so important.

 If I don’t trust you, I will not do business with you – ever.

UPDATE:

I wrote another article on this story with more details – click here

For more information:

The Francisco Appeal, “Brother of Google Executive Marissa Mayer Facing Charges…” – click here

SFGate, “Google executive’s brother accused of domestic attack” – click here

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Eric Hague: Dear Google User…

Eric Hague is a humor writer – a funny letter he wrote pretending to be a member of Google’s privacy team was published by The Wall Street Journal today.

Google seems to think it knows what is best for us, knows everything about us, and is smarter than us – the amusing piece by Mr. Hague has a little fun with all that.

Head on over to The Wall Street Journal and read the full letter titled “Dear Google User: We’re Sure You’re Going to Love This” – click here

Google Plus Ad Campaign Is Boring And Fails To Promote Struggling Site

Google really doesn’t “get” social. It seems to me that they lack the ability to understand how people want to connect and how they interact. Google executives like Marissa Mayer have admitted that Google has fallen behind in the social aspect of the Web and they are desperately trying to play catch-up.

Well, today Google UK uploaded a video on YouTube advertising the company’s social networking site called Google Plus. The campaign to get more people to use Google Plus doesn’t impress me much. Their video is titled “Google+: Tom” and it shows a man going through life on Google Plus. We see the man add his wife to his circles, it then shows the couple’s newborn child, and other significant moments in life. The video ends with a future look at the aged man as he reminisces about his youth with his friends in a video chat.

Sorry, but the video is so dumb.

I find it so pretentious, over-the-top, and confusing. I don’t like how the video doesn’t show the consistent and linear progression of the man’s life. In my first passive viewing of the video I got confused about whose life was being shared – the dad or the child? When it switches from the little boy in the green school uniform to the prom scene, I thought it was the little boy grown up ha-ha…but it was actually the dad.

I had to take a closer second viewing of the video to catch the stuff I missed.

Afterwards the narrator goes on about being a solider, being in a cannon, being a Justice, and a wise soul ha-ha. It finally ends with a corny aged look of the man with his friends, and he then adds his grandchild to his circles.

I know what this video is trying to be, but I don’t think it successfully accomplished it. It doesn’t pull on the heartstrings, it doesn’t excite me, and it doesn’t make me want to use Google Plus. I don’t think the video is mainstream enough and, quite frankly, it’s boring.

Also, I really don’t want Google keeping decades of personal data of my life  “well saved” on Google Plus. No thanks!

Now compare this video with a video uploaded by Facebook last year, which Google pretty much tried to copy. The Facebook video is so much better and gets to the point. Facebook’s video shows the life of a man from birth to present-day. It’s easy to follow along, it’s organized well, the music is energized, it’s fast paced, it pulls on the heartstrings, it’s funny, and it just works.

The Facebook video feels fun and fresh – while the Google video comes across as old and high-brow. Facebook is more inclusive while Google is more like an exclusive dull club for a particular type of person.

I’m gonna have to take pass on Google Plus – it just doesn’t do it for me.

Embarrassing, Apple Is Responsible For The Vast Majority Of Google’s Mobile Revenue

Image via CrunchBase

There are new revelations about the health of Google’s mobile business and it looks like Google is in really bad shape. Thanks to documents submitted in the legal battle between Google and Oracle over patents, the public gets a new look at exactly how well Google’s Android is performing.

Google is secretive about letting the public know about how much revenue Android brings in – but now we know that Android actually doesn’t make much money for Google at all. Google’s overall 2011 revenues totaled about $40 billion and much of that is from ads from search results on desktop computers. Very little of Google’s overall revenues is from mobile.

According to The Guardian, Android generated less than $550 million between 2008 and 2011 – pitiful. Google produces the Android software which it then gives away for free to handset makers to sell. Google makes its money from ad revenue on the mobile devices and from applications on Google Play (formerly known as Android Market), which is doing extremely poorly compared to Apple’s App store.

Here is where it gets particularly interesting – Google actually makes more money from Apple’s mobile devices than it does from its own Android powered smartphones! Now isn’t that hilarious, ha-ha, especially considering the recent bad blood between Google and Apple.

Apple is responsible for generating more than four times as much revenue for Google! This is because at least half of all smartphone owners use an Apple device and Google is the default search engine. Apple also extensively used Google Maps – but as recently told Google to get lost and is now using a mixture of its own acquired mapping technology and free crowdsourced mapping.

Who knew that Apple had such a big role in Google’s mobile business?

Majority of Google’s mobile traffic can be credited to Apple. Google should be grateful to Apple for being so helpful, but Google treats Apple like crap. Google expressed its gratitude to Apple by trying to impose itself into Apple’s territory, which infuriated Apple.

What did Apple do as payback?

Apple no longer extensively uses Google Maps, Apple added other search engines as alternative options to Google’s, and Apple appears to be ditching Google altogether in China (a huge and attractive market). And we all know about how Apple set its Safari Web browser default to automatically block third-party tracking cookies  – however, it was exposed last month that Google illegally circumvented this security feature, but is now facing countless lawsuits from Apple users.

Psst…hey Google…don’t bite that hand that feeds you.

For more information:

The Guardian, “Google’s Android has generated just $550m since 2008, figures suggest” – click here

AppleInsider, “Google earns 80% of its mobile revenue from iOS, just 20% from Android” – click here

The US Federal Trade Commission Releases Online Privacy Report

For more information:

SlashGear, “FTC echoes public siren call for De-Personalized Web” – click here

Washington Post, “FTC releases final privacy report...” – click here

Washington Post – click here

Apple Makes Business More Difficult For Google In China

Apple Inc. (Photo credit: marcopako )

It is being reported that Apple will be ditching Google in China and replacing it with Baidu as the default search engine. Baidu is the dominant search engine provider in China with a market share estimated at 78%, while Google doesn’t even come close to that number.

Apple’s new operating system will integrate various popular Chinese Internet services – this will make it more attractive for consumers. This will further weaken Google in China, which is a huge loss for the company because the Chinese market is a very attractive one. Apple is making it even more difficult for Google to get its foot in the door. Apple also plans to ditch Google as the default search engine on mobile devices in China.

Recently, it was also reported that Apple ditched Google Maps and is now using a free crowdsourcing mapping service for its mobile devices. It looks like the battle between Apple and Google is getting even more intense and Google is losing.

For more information:

ITProPortal, “Apple To Replace Google With Baidu For The Chinese Market” – click here

DailyFinance, “Are Apple and Baidu About to Team Up on Google?” – click here

googleexposed, “Apple Tells Google Maps To Take A Hike” – click here

Google Is Extremely “Hostile” Toward Privacy

This is an interesting video from the CBC from a few years ago. Even back then Google was considered a huge threat to privacy and personal freedom on the Internet. Things have since gotten worse with Google – I wonder how bad it will get until people finally say “we’re not gonna take it anymore!”

BBC: Internet Privacy Paranoia Or Legitimate Concerns

The BBC published an interesting article today about Internet privacy. Google is the biggest of the Big Brothers and collects your information more than any other Internet company in the world – it even rivals some repressive government intrusion on the personal lives of citizens. Google does not give users explicit consent to sell their personal data to third parties, Google does not allow users to opt-out of data harvesting, and Google is not completely forthcoming about exactly what they do with our personal data.

Please read through the BBC article for yourself. The strong desire to protect our personal information on the Internet is definitely not paranoia, it’s simply being smart. Several recent surveys have shown that the vast majority of Internet users are deeply concerned about privacy on the Internet but many don’t know how to protect themselves. The media and governments need to make sure that people are educated about online safety and have strong laws in place to protect innocent people.

By the way – I love the “Big Brother” (or Big Google) eye picture the BBC accompanied with the article 🙂

Read more – click here

Google Employees Should Breakaway

To all the Google employees who decided to ditch Google and do what’s right – I dedicate this song to y’all 🙂

Google Engineer: “Google Is The Biggest Data Collector In The World, Period”

Google is currently struggling with a brain drain as many of its employees are departing the company to found their own companies and to take advantage of better opportunities at emerging companies. Recently, Google’s very first employee, Craig Silverstein, left the company to pursue a more fulfilling career. Some Google employees are leaving because they feel that Google has changed over the years. This is definitely how a former Google executive, James Whittaker, felt when he left Google earlier this year.

In a blog post, Mr. Whittaker said that Google became more about chasing after Facebook and competing for precious advertising dollars – Google became less about maintaining a great internal culture and ethical business standards. Google is now willing to say and do anything to further itself in a competitive industry, which means that the company couldn’t care less about your privacy. Google’s number one customers are the advertisers. Google makes over 90% of its revenues from advertising – it is by far the world’s most intrusive company on the Internet. Google is able to track our web movements on literally millions of websites, without our knowledge or consent.

However, not all Google employees are happy about what Google is doing with our personal data. Some Google employees refuse to take part in something that is against their personal ethics. Former Google engineers Brian Kennish and Austin Chau founded Disconnect. Their new company’s mission is to give Internet users back control of their personal data.

Mr. Kennish says that Google is the biggest collector of personal data in the world – bar none – and this disturbed him enough that he decided to leave the company to work on a project that limits online tracking. He first got started with the Disconnect project while working at Google. He read an article about the lack of privacy on the Internet and how tracking companies are spying on our web surfing. He went home and created a browser extension that blocked third party tracking on Facebook.

He later quit his job at Google – this eventually led him to found his new company and expand services to block tracking on more websites, including Google. I have written on here several times before that Google is the biggest of the Big Brothers. This means that Google knows a lot about you. Google offers many products and services (YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, Google Search, Android, etc), this company is everywhere. On top of all this, Google has tracking devices all over the Internet – this means that even if you’re not on a Google owned website Google can still track you!

This is disturbing! Google’s new more intrusive privacy policy will allow the company to track you even more closely. At least there are some Google employees who aren’t afraid to speak up and do what’s right. Let’s hope that more Google employees find the courage to do what is right.

The video below is presentation by Brian Kennish – it’s definitely worth watching (pay especial attention at 10:00 – 10:33 mark in the video – this has happened!)

For more information:

ITProPortal, “Ex-Google Staff Working To Disconnect Surfers From Data Tracking” – click here

TechCrunch, “Disconnect: Ex-Googlers Raise Funding To Stop Google…” – click here

Nasdaq, “Google’s VP Of Product Management Leaving To Launch Startup” – click here

ITWorld, “How to get off Google for good” – click here